Huttleston House is sold to Emma Jean's owners New owners' plan New York style deli to be run by Jeff Antil

Thursday

Dec 6, 2012 at 12:25 PM

By Peggy Aulisio

By Peggy Aulisio

Editor

FAIRHAVEN — Huttleston House Restaurant, a longtime popular family eatery on Route 6 in Fairhaven, has been sold to Kenneth and Cathy Melanson. The sale went through this week, Mrs. Melanson confirmed Tuesday.

Mrs. Melanson said if all goes smoothly, they plan to reopen it as a "New York style deli" next spring with a new name. The delicatessen will be run by Jeff Antil of the former Antil's Specialty Meats in North Fairhaven.

Mr. Antil closed his market after a fire damaged much of the building in August 2011. Since October, he's been making meat and fruit pies and other specialties at Emma Jean's, which is owned by Mrs. Melanson. Emma Jean's is next door to Huttleston House.

Mr. Melanson owns Northern Wind, a scallop processor, Maritime Realty and other real estate. Mrs. Melanson is the owner of Emma Jean's and is co-owner with her husband of Total Confections.

Emma Jean's celebrated its first year in business in October. It started out specializing in cupcakes, chocolates, ice cream and gift items and has been branching out, with plans to add more bakery products.

"I think we've accomplished a friendly atmosphere," Mrs. Melanson said of Emma Jean's. She said they hope to extend the family-friendly atmosphere to the deli, where people will be able to buy sandwiches plus Antil's specialities to take home.

While the "game plan" is still in the works, Mrs. Melanson said Antil's hamburger meats and steaks will be sold there in the future.

The loss of Antil's to the fire was a real blow to customers who appreciated the quality of the homemade products sold there for more than 20 years. Along with chicken, meat and Shepherd's pies, Antil's was known for kielbasa and linguica, including mouth-watering linguica and cheese rolls.

Locals have also missed being able to buy cooked turkeys since Antil's closed. But Mr. Antil is selling his meat and fruit pies at Emma Jean's; some 500 pies were sold for Thanksgiving. And he will be selling perogies and galumkis in time for the Christmas holiday this year.

"For 23 years, we had Antil's," Mr. Antil said in an interview while cooking last Thursday. "It was pretty devastating because it was not only me. A family of four on the second floor lost their apartment, my daughter lost an apartment and another tenant on the third floor lost an apartment."

On top of that, he added, 12 employees lost their positions, of which three were full time and the rest part-time, including many students.

Recently, Mr. Antil has been working for Mr. Melanson at Northern Wind. The Antils and Melansons are close. Mr. Antil's wife Nancy became friends with Mrs. Melanson when they worked together at Zales years ago.

"I'm really finding out now that the community has missed our prepared foods," Mr. Antil said.

Asked where the recipes come from, Mr. Antil said one of the pies is from his grandmother's recipe while other Antil's specialties evolved by experimentation and taste-testing.

Mr. Antil said his father bought the market in North Fairhaven in 1988 and let him run it. His father also owned Bob and Eileen's Super Variety Store on County and Weld streets in New Bedford.

"It was just up the street from Giammalvo's," Mr. Antil said recalling those early days.

Back then, he said, small business owners were close, not competitive. He said he got to know the "Giammalvo boys" well growing up and that his family was friendly with the owners of Lloyd's Market.

"A lot of these families we grew up in business together," he said. "Instead of trying to be cutthroat, we tried to help each other out."

Although he did well in seafood sales this past year, Mr. Antil said, "In the back of my head, I missed the chaos of being in business for myself."